This is a guest post by Millionaire Mob, a blog focused on investing in dividend growth stocks, passive income ideas and travel hacking. We have helped thousands of people with bettering their financial future through our personal finance tips.

A solid network is a promising asset in your financial freedom journey. Having a strong network is crucial to achieving financial independence.

“No man is an island” an old adage goes.

How are you utilizing your existing networks to reach your financial goals?

We are social beings and are connected with different people within different circles. We have people around us some who are family, friends, and colleagues that we have formed a strong bond with. These people can support us in one way or another to realize our financial goals.

Before you enlist the help of your network, you first need to have a clear goal of what you intend to attain. You need to plan why and how you will accumulate wealth and build a firm financial foundation. Our study shows that the true meaning of accumulated wealth is approximately 11x your income.

Set a plan of action with details of how you are going to generate income. Find out how you can diversify your income sources. Perform a research on different investments available to you. Read different resources to discover more information about the types, the advantages, and disadvantages of different investments. Get the opinions of diverse financial advisors and join their networks. Consider different investments that you can involve in. Engage in active, passive and portfolio income ideas. Consider getting a part-time job or try to obtain online jobs. Check out this list of over 23 proven online jobs without investment.

Whatever your financial targets are, they need to be clear and achievable. Define your deliverables, set quantifiable goals and gauge the level of risk appropriate for you. Set a timeframe on when to achieve every milestone. Be disciplined and avoid that which can distract you from your vision. If you set realistic goals, you are more likely to attract people with similar financial ambitions and resolutions.

Here are 4 surefire ways in which you can use your network to achieve your financial freedom goals:

Foster quality connections

Your networks can be a great resource that will connect you to your dream job or an amazing opportunity that will change your financial situation. You can find potential partners to strike profitable business deals with that will take your business to another level. Your connections can also become your clients if you can offer valuable products to them. All you need is just to be outstanding in what you do.

These prospects this can be obtained without necessarily spamming your connections but by presenting and positioning yourself in such a way that opportunities find you. In one way or another, it will help raise your financial position and ultimately reach your financial goal.

With recent developments in technology, it is easier today to make more connections with friends, bosses, classmates, customers etc over social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Whatsapp and Twitter among others. Take advantage of these platforms to expand your circle of influence. Reach out to potential employers and be ready to grab every opportunity that may come your way. Be ready to deliver value and to produce exceptional results in your work so at to get referrals. When you are outstanding in what you do, you are more likely to attract and maintain quality connections that will thrust you to your financial destiny.

Start a financial challenge

A challenge helps to keep the participants on their toes until they achieve their objectives. Start a financial challenge, for example, a challenge that can help to fix bad financial habits that can ruin your dream.

You can start a challenge to clear all your debts within the shortest time possible and enlist your networks to become part of it. Get and share resources to motivate and inspire each other to pay off debts.

It could also be a challenge to live frugally and to save as much as possible. Start a savings challenge. Find ways to help save and reduce expenses. Share discounted products, items on sale, and couponing ideas among other saving tips. You can also incorporate the use of different financial apps. Some apps like Spendee, Dollar bird, etc help you to track your expenses, manage budgets and track purchases among other great features.

You can form a group of friends or create a savings group through social media and start the challenge. It can be a year-long or a few months challenge. Make clear the rules and the governing the group, set milestones and track the progress.

For each month, week or day try to set-up or create a task to accomplish, the tools that you will need and the timeframe to do it. At the end of the challenge, gauge the outcome and see if there were any changes in your financial position. Create a new challenge and continue with the cycle.

When you create a group of people who are up to the challenge, it helps you to remain committed to the main agenda of the group and to be accountable to each other. A financial challenge can help to keep you on the check and help you to avoid bad financial habits that are not aligned to your ultimate objectives.

Keep learning from the best

Ensure that you have connections with people who have similar interests and learn from them. They may be resourceful especially if they have done something or have similar goals that you intend to achieve. They can also share with you different tips and tricks, what to do and mistakes to avoid achieving the specific goals.

Share your interest

Share your financial objectives with people in your networks. You can use the social network platforms to engage with other professionals, join groups and forums that discuss financial matters and opportunities. Share content, create and post blog posts and online profiles with an aim to connect with other people with similar interests.

You are more likely to get tips and tricks from people you share related interests with. They can also encourage and motivate you to remain focused on your financial goals.

Bottom line

Financial freedom cannot be achieved in isolation. You must have and nurture your connections and be committed to making it possible. You should make it a priority to prepare and set clear financial goals before you enlist your networks. The financial objectives will also help you find people with common interests who will inspire you along the journey towards financial freedom.

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I’m seeing them on forums, blogs, and comment sections. There is always some reason why people can’t start investing today. The most widespread excuse is “I don’t have the money to start”. Today, we are going to solve that, because we’re going to show you how to turn your old junk into investments.

I recently started my journey towards living frugal and have learned a great deal of lessons since beginning. One of the most important lessons is the need to invest early on in life to take advantage of compound interest and a good rate of return. The problem? I didn’t have the cash to put towards an investment. I could have made excuses, but I didn’t. Instead, I found a way to earn the cash.

Turn Junk into Investments

Is your garage littered with old junk you never use, or do you have unloved trinkets laying around your living room? If you’re anything like me, you do. If you want to clean up your space and make some cash in the process, you could look into selling your old junk.

Your trash could be another person’s treasure! You never know what people are looking for, in terms of old kitchen appliances, old tools, even old art or trinkets. Someone might be looking for a blender jar for a broken blender, and you might have one laying around from an old blender you never bothered to get rid of.

Or, you maybe you recently upgraded your mower and you need a way to get rid of your old one. As you learn to live a more frugal life, you will realize there are cheaper ways to live a rich life than spending money on items you will only use a handful of times and then take up space in your home. Take those old mistakes into cash by selling your old stuff for cold, hard cash.

Sell it at a Pawn Shop

If you want to get cash quickly and with little hassle, you can take it to your local pawn shop. Make sure you price your stuff reasonably, otherwise they won’t take it. Have you ever watched Pawn Stars? While your items might not be as rare or unique, (or maybe they are!) most pawn shops are similar to the shop in Pawn Stars- they are most likely not going to offer you your asking price, they will price lower so they can sell higher to their next buyer. Remember, they need to make money too!

Pawn shops will take anything from old jewelry to DVDs to old lawn equipment. If you have specialty items, like art or antiques, research your local pawn shops to find the place that will give you the most money for them. Don’t get sellers remorse at the last second though, they may not be willing to sell it back to you!

Have a Garage Sale

The thought of a pawn shop may be too impersonal, and if so that is okay! You could always sell your stuff at a garage sale. This requires a little more planning- you will want to make signs and price your items individually like a department store. You will also want to enlist the help of friends or family to help collect cash, answer questions, and make sure nobody walks away without paying.

Garage sales can attract all sorts of people, including young people, families, and collectors. Some might not have the best intentions, so it is good to have a system that makes sure no buyers can walk away without paying for their items. Trust me, they will try! A garage sale gives you the opportunity to tell the story behind your pieces and watch them walk away to their new home, which is much more personal then selling them to some guy behind the counter at a pawn shop.

Sell on Craigslist

For higher-value or larger pieces you may want to post them on Craigslist. Craigslist gives you the opportunity to reach out to more potential customers without having to ship a bulky or expensive item. If you are worried about the crazy stories you have heard about Craigslist deals going bad, you can enlist the help of a friend or family member to accompany you.

Don’t meet buyers at your house or late at night. It is preferable to meet them in a neutral location, such as a parking lot or mall, with a friend or family member with you. Make sure to ask the potential buyer to bring cash- do not accept checks, money orders, or anything else! There are plenty of scammers mucking about on Craigslist, but there are also plenty of serious buyers.

Sell on Ebay

Ebay is perfect for smaller items, like kitchen appliances, clothes, jewelry, and trinkets. People from all over the world use this website and are usually excited to find pieces that are just exactly what they are looking for. You can give buyers the opportunity to bid on your items, or simply buy them outright. The only drawback of Ebay is that you will have to ship the items. Be sure to build the cost of shipping into your price, and be sure to pack your items securely! The last thing you want is for the item to arrive to the buyer broken.

This can be an amazing opportunity to reach buyers all over the world. You really never know what people in Michigan, France, or Thailand are looking for- it could be exactly what you have in your hot little hands.

Now that you’ve turned your old junk into investments

Selling your items online or in-person can add some extra cash to your pockets. Now that you have it, download the Robinhood app from the iPhone or Android store. The Robinhood app allows you to start trading with as little as $1. And the trades are free.

Don’t let sentimentality destroy your future! Start investing now. I promise, that old lawnmower or ugly pillow you got as a gift aren’t worth keeping. You may not get full retail price, but you will get more than you have in your pockets right now.

I used to put everything on the credit card and pay it off in full every month. Then I took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University course. Now I use cash envelopes. All of the benefits of cash envelopes did not become clear to us until my wife and I used them for about three months. My life has improved so significantly from this change, that I wrote this to share with you why I made the switch and to detail the six reasons I’m happy to continue using cash envelopes.

A Quicken Nerd’s Perfect Budget

I was the kind of person who kept receipts for everything. I entered them all into Quicken so I could make pretty line graphs and pie charts. I liked to look back at my spending habits, and I used actual annual spending averages to create my budget. Although I do things differently now, I am still that kind of nerd.

However, each month I would go about my usual (relatively frugal) spending habits, with no regard for this “perfect” budget until the end of the month. Then I would add up my receipts and see where I overspent and underspent. I would tell myself, “Okay, I need to go out to eat less” or “This was a big month for clothes (because I actually bought something), but annually I haven’t overspent.”

I was looking back at my spending, but looking back isn’t control. My budget wasn’t a plan. It was just a feedback tool for my habits. It was a reactive way of managing my money. First I would spend my money, then I would look back to see if I should have spent it differently. Does this sound familiar?

[Tweet “First I would spend my money, then I would look back to see if I should have spent it differently”]

I Don’t Want to Touch Dirty Germy Cash

Cash is dirty, filthy, germy, and gross. I hated touching it. I preferred my cleaner credit card. I liked the rewards points, too. So what would make me want to use something I consider unsanitary?

I wanted me and my wife to take Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) so we’d be on the same page financially, and so if something happened to me she would know where our money was and what bills needed to be paid. Taking the course accomplished this mission, but it also revolutionized the way I manage money.

Switching to cash envelopes was a leap of faith that I decided to take because of other benefits from the FPU class. My wife and I were working on our zero-based budget. Having taken care of the “four walls” (home, food, clothing, and transportation), we were deciding where we were going to spend the other part of our income. We made a list of all the things we wanted, which was, of course, longer than our money was.

We had to prioritize, so we compared categories like dining, gift giving, gym memberships, and “garage sale” money. My wife suggested to me that we cancel cable. I was astonished. I had asked her about cancelling cable in months prior, and she made it clear that having cable was a big deal for her. I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but now she was suggesting to me that we should cancel cable. Why did she change her mind?

My wife noticed we could use the money from cable to fund three other categories instead. The opportunity cost of cable was too high. Opportunity cost means that if you spend money on one thing, those dollars cannot be spent on something else. Plus we had Netflix and the Internet, so we weren’t doing anything crazy like giving up TV completely. Our zero-based budget helped my wife see the opportunity cost of cable, so she decided to cancel it. Since the practices taught in FPU could accomplished what seemed to me to be impossible, I was willing to try dirty, filthy, germy cash.

We Learned How to Use Cash

Many of our bills were automatic transfers and withdrawals. Everything else was put into cash envelopes, in the amounts my wife and I had decided to allocate in our FPU zero-based budget. It was like learning to ride a bike. We didn’t do everything perfectly the first couple of months. By the third month it became quick, easy, and natural to use cash envelopes.

Two years later, my wife and I are still using cash envelopes. We still make changes to our budget and envelope system, as our needs and wants continue to change. If you follow my example, expect some mistakes as you climb the learning curve. However, keep an open and flexible mind as you go through the process.

Benefit #1: I am the General of My Army

The first and greatest benefit of cash envelopes was that I, for the first time in my nerdy-budgeting life, truly felt like the captain of my ship. My money was like an army and I was the general, telling it where to go and what to do. The process of budgeting was no longer reactive. Instead, my wife and I decided what was important beforehand and allocated our resources (cash) to it. We were directly in control of our money, instead of indirectly controlling our spending by trying to exert discipline over our habits.

Instead of evaluating our spending decisions after they happened, we were pushing our money toward categories that were important to us in the amounts we deemed appropriate.

[Tweet “My money was like an army and I was the general, telling it where to go and what to do”]

Benefit #2: No Overspending Worries

I don’t need to look back at our budget to figure out if we were overspending. It is right there in the envelopes. If we have cash in the envelope, then there is money to spend in that category. If we spent all the cash, then we’d have to consider other options (a topic worthy of its own article). This is the reality of living with finite financial resources.

There is no cheating or fudging with cash envelopes. If we want to be big spenders today and get appetizers and drinks and desserts, then we are choosing not to spend that money on something else, such as clothes, cars, or other dinners out. We can’t throw it on the credit card and hope it all smooths out in the long run. We cannot take “Option A” and use DEBT to get “Option B” as well.

Benefit #3: I Make Spending Decisions Like a Mature Adult

The opportunity cost of our spending speaks loud and clear when I am handing over Benjamin Franklin to a cashier. My wife and I may still decide to do some big spending, but we will do it knowing full well that we chose that as a priority over the other options we could have pursued with that money.

A mature adult does not hide from the consequence of his or her actions. He or she does not pretend consequences don’t exist. A mature adult does not ignore them and hope these monsters will go away. Choices are ours to make and to live with, as are the resulting consequences (good or bad).

Contrast adult maturity to how a child behaves. Spending is based on insistent “I want it,” and perhaps some pouty foot-stomping. The buying decisions of a child (or immature adult) are dictated by how he or she feels at the time. Priorities, financial goals, and opportunity costs don’t factor into immature spending decision. This kind of emotional spending, by the way, easily falls prey to savvy sales tactics.

Benefit #4: I can Relax and Enjoy My Spending

My emotional reaction to spending changed. Instead of wondering if a transaction was going to become part of another month of overspending, I knew that I could not go over budget. I don’t have to worry about overspending, because when the cash runs out the spending stops.

My budget is now a source of peace, confidence, and enjoyment instead of a straight-jacket of guilt or hand-slap of shame. The money I was spending was put in that envelope specifically for the purpose of being spent on this item. There is no guilt or worry. I can spend it joyfully and be confident that we are living within our means.

Benefit #5: We Spend Significantly Less.

Since we started using cash envelopes, I’ve noticed that the amount of cash I withdraw from our account to put in the envelopes is significantly less than any of our monthly credit card statements were. My wife and I don’t know what it is we are no longer buying, but whatever it is, we aren’t missing it. Our monthly cash requirements are 30% less than what we used to consider a small credit card statement, and 45% less than a “normal” month’s credit card bill.

[Tweet “Our monthly cash requirements are 30% less than what we used to consider a small credit card statement”]

I am amazed at how using a credit card was causing an unconscious increase in spending. In FPU, Dave Ramsey talks about how using plastic doesn’t have the same neurological response as spending cash. Plastic doesn’t trigger the pain centers like giving up cash does. For this reason, Dave reports that using plastic results in 12-18% more spending than if you use cash.

My wife and I have always considered ourselves frugal. I didn’t think we could reduce our spending by 12-18%. The change was so subtle, I didn’t realize we had reduced our spending so much until the third or fourth month’s cash withdrawal. Since I have experienced this first-hand, I’m a believer.

Benefit #6: My Son Is Rich – for a 1 ½ Year Old

Cash envelopes are contributing to my son’s financial education. Coins don’t fit well in envelopes, so the change from every transaction goes into my son’s piggy bank. About once a month we deposit this money into his savings account. He will someday use this money to pay for college or a house.

My son enjoys putting the coins into the slot of his piggy bank. He gets applauded for saving, even though I know he doesn’t understand money. He also gets to wash his hands right after handling the coins, which he also enjoys. I let him carry the coin container to the teller. He loves to lift stuff and show how strong he is.

I know he has no idea what a bank is, but he’s participating in the act of saving and handling money at an early age. He is learning and practicing habits that he will carry into his adult life.

Now Go Into The World… and Take Some Cash

I encourage you to stop looking back at your spending in an effort to control it. Put your discretionary funds into cash envelopes. Tell your money where to go proactively instead of wondering why you overspend. Be prepared to deal with the reality of finite resources. Don’t try to hide from the truth! As you spend out of those envelopes, do it joyfully and confidently. Enjoy yourself and have peace knowing that you are living within your means. Tell your inner nerd, “The budget is okay!”

May we all learn to be the best stewards we can of the resources (not just money) that God entrusts with us. As we learn and grow, know that He always has more to give. We will be presented with these gifts when we are ready and able to handle them.

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